My Bubble
There's a glaring gap in my information consumption.
This was originally part of my post on the changing media environment, but I decided midstream that, while related, it deserves to be highlighted separately.
As part of his long essay arguing that the right-wing media has overtaken traditional voices to dominate coverage of American politics, TNR editor Michael Tomasky observed,
Liberals, rich and otherwise, live in a bubble where they never see this stuff. I would beg them to see it. Watch some Fox. Listen to some Christian radio. Experience the news that millions of Americans are getting on a daily basis.
While I’m not exactly a liberal, I have been accused by a couple of our rare Trump-supporting commenters of being in an information bubble. They have a point, although perhaps not quite the one they intend.
I have long been intentional about being widely read and exposing myself to alternate viewpoints. But I now realize my approach has a systemic bias. While I engage with a wide variety of ideas, exposing myself to various viewpoints along the ideological spectrum, I limit myself considerably in terms of the style and manner in which those ideas are expressed.
When I was a staunch Republican, I read a lot of Democratic-leaning press (indeed, I considered the NYT and WaPo in that camp) and pundits. Decades ago, I subscribed to both National Review and The New Republic. Since starting blogging, I’ve engaged with liberal commentators in good faith. But it was people like Tomasky (whom I debated many years ago on the old BlogTalkingHeads show), Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and others who took an intellectual, facts-based approach. I didn’t—and still don’t—spend a lot of time engaging with what I considered the Loony Left.
The same has long been true of my consumption of right-wing sources. While I was an avid Rush Limbaugh listener for many years, I’d grown tired of his schtick by time time I launched OTB. Even in the blog’s early days, when I was not only much more ideological but cranking out a dozen or more posts daily, I quickly stopped reading the likes of Lucianne and other hard-right sites because I couldn’t take them seriously. On literally the first day of the site’s existence, I called out Ann Coulter for intellectual dishonesty.
So, while I’m well versed on the arguments being made across the ideological spectrum and believe that I engage them fairly, my aperture is on Establishment and otherwise respectable sources and the style of argumentation that predominates the academy, think tanks, mainstream punditry, and the like.
I’m honestly not even sure how to fix this, in that I’m not constitutionally wired to engage in discussion with those operating on their own set of facts and immune to evidence from sources I consider unimpeachable.
It is, I suppose, useful to know that the bizarre “They’re eating our pets!” meme originated in an alternate information ecosystem rather than being made up on the spot by our former and future President. Given that, it’s perfectly reasonable to treat people spouting that talking points as misinformed, rather than as trolls who are intentionally trying to derail the discussion. But if these people treat statements from the mayor of the town in question, reporting from the mainstream press, academic studies, FBI crime statistics, and any other evidence that, no, goddammit, they’re not eating our pets as lies and propaganda, the difference between them and a troll is one without distinction.
It’s very interesting to me that nobody is telling those on the Right that they are in an information bubble, apparently only those on the Left are in a bubble. Basically, the Left is inept at modern politics, at counter-punching the Right’s talking points.
That said, I do not not believe that you need to directly consume Right Wing Media in order know what information is flooding the zone, what they’re are saying. That is, you don’t have to watch FoxNews or NewsMax, or tune into to blogs and digital platforms hosted by people like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Rogan, in order to know what they’re saying.
All of this stuff is out there 24/7/365.
It’s funny, I started reading OTB (lo many years ago) in a deliberate attempt to get out of my bubble and read more smart conservatives. And now you’re basically moderate Democrats.
Part of the issue is I prefer reading (due to some hearing loss) and never got into talk radio, YouTube videos or podcasts. I suspect that’s already limiting in some sense.
@al Ameda:
You can’t, they won’t believe that, they see the “liberal” media as corrupt liars. Even if they acknowledge that their team lies, they would rather hear lies from their own team.
@Tim D.:
I have poor hearing and a real fast reading speed, so yeah, I mostly read stuff, never do podcasts, youtubes rarely.
@al Ameda:
You can’t, they won’t believe that, they see the “liberal” media as corrupt liars. Even if they acknowledge that their team lies, they would rather hear lies from their own team.
@Tim D.:
I have poor hearing and a real fast reading speed, so yeah, I mostly read stuff, never do podcasts, youtubes rarely.
ETA: I discovered Balloon Juice back when John Cole was still a Republican – I read him because he was such an outlier as a Republican who could construct sensible intellectually honest posts.
I am aware that I too share this consumption bubble. I read this blog, which I find thoughtful, and professional media sites (NYT, WaPo, NPR, Guardian, BBC, primarily), and direct research such as Pew.
I will not be augmenting that list by adding Fox, Christian radio, or anything like that.
It’s junk food. We all know that highly processed food is designed to make us want more, but it’s bad for us. This whackadoodle ecosystem is no different. Barely satisfies a craving, becoming an addiction, and ultimately poisoning the mind and body.
I’ve been wrestling with this too. It’s too easy to lie and way too hard to explain. The right doesn’t need to explain their lies. They can just lie confidently and when people point out that a confident lie is still a lie they can just insult.
On the other hand, I not only have to make space for uncertainty, I am held to a ridiculously high standard of proof.
I don’t know how to fight against this.
@Beth:
Good to have you back here. I was concerned.
@Jen:
Good analogy!
When I hang out with my old Trump-voting high school buddies, they also tend to eat poorly. A constant stream of diet pop and cherry-picked data points proving “red meat’s better for you than vegetables with their lectins,” etc. (Yeah, sure. Unlike one of them, I haven’t had a heart attack yet … we’re barely 50 after all.) They seem like good guys, but they hear what they want to hear.
The thing is, their own health doesn’t affect me much. Their votes do. But I don’t see how to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in the information era.
We very aware of the swill being slung to the American public. I don’t believe, you or I or anyone else who recognizes the distorted reality it creates needs to personally consume it frequently to be reminded of the cunning, malevolence, and financial rewards of those who generate, amplify, and disseminate it. (Academics, journalists, political officeholders, and government policymakers excepted.)
The real question is: Why are people attracted to it? I don’t think most are into reading Heritage Foundation materials, including Project 25. Yet conservative media is consumed far more than liberal OR unbiased media. Possibilities:
1. It’s free (if you agree to the privacy policies and terms that collect your every move online)
2. It’s gladiator sport and the conservative media is the winner for entertainment value
3. It’s messages are expressed at a comprehension level more readily absorbed
4. Lies don’t require knowledge or education to understand the deep and complex systems and policies that affect their everyday lives
What else?
@Tim D. and charontwo:
I purposely get 90% of my news by reading. Some NPR. No TV. I think this alone is a bubble I choose to live in.
Part of the problem is the right thinks that their worldview is so compelling that if someone disagrees with them, it must be because they haven’t been exposed to it yet.
They don’t believe it’s possible for some to fully understand them and yet still think they’re wrong.
@Jen: Political Christian radio is useless for understanding either politics or Christianity. Always was, always will be.
@Skookum:
I’m not sure how much people believe right wing newstainment, actually believe it. Or whether it occupies some space where it could be the truth, or it could be bullshitting, and no one cares what the truth is. My brothers see through it, but they’re also nihilists and believe nothing.
And on the left, we have the tall tales of JD Vance and the couch, which I don’t think many people believed was the literal truth, but instead more of a metaphorical truth.
“They’re eating the pets” may be like that, except with more malevolent intent.
@TheRyGuy:
The dude is old. He’s not senile. He’s frail, because he’s a billion and a half years old, but that’s never been a secret. Guess what, Trump is only a few years younger, and hasn’t released his medical records, and brags about passing a “very hard” cognitive test.
I remember in 2016 how sick the right claimed Hillary Clinton was, and how everyone was covering it up and she would be dead within 6 months. Last I checked, she’s still alive and kicking.
But while you’re here: Do you genuinely believe the stories you are told about Venezuelan gangs taking over Aurora, CO, Biden being unable to recognize where he is, and the eating of pets? Or is it all just bullshitting?
@TheRyGuy: what makes you so confident that the NYT/WAPO etc lies while all those other media outlets tell the truth?
This is a genuine question. I certainly want to believe true things and not be lied to. I don’t follow any of those sources on any kind of regular basis, so it would be helpful for me to understand why I should trust some and not others in your experience.
It seems to me that including a source that is lying or detached from reality or straight up disinformation in one’s media diet can only tell you what other people are being exposed to, not anything else useful about the world. But what is that information about what their worldview is/where it comes from useful for?
@Erik:
You may be interested in the ad fontes media’s Interactive Media Chart.
1] Add Dylan Ratigan’s podcast “Truth Or Skepticism” with Tom Sosnoff to your listening rotation. Sosnoff created the trading platform ThinkOrSwim and has been a WallStreet trader for decades. Dylan Ratigan is yet another in the long list of one-time MSNBC hosts who were fired [“not renewed”] because they are legit commentators with a spine.
2] Add NakedCapitalism to your website viewing rotation.
3] To all those of you who have legitimate doubts regarding the various US news sources [NYT, Fox, WaPo] — I recommend getting your news from a combo of BBC, Guardian, AlJazeera, and Reuters. I read the takes from all4 before having a specific opinion about anything.
Objective reality is that the presentation of news is activism, so if you only pull from one source, eventually you parrot their opinion — even RyGuy.
@Gustopher:..
@Erik:..
From Thursday’s Don’t be a Troll thread I offer this post dated Saturday, 9 November 2024 at 10:23 by Professor Taylor:
I take this to mean citizen R. Guy won’t be back to respond to your inquiries.
Not to worry. I still curse my ex now and then and we haven’t communicated in 30 years.
@Skookum: thanks. I’ve seen that sort of thing in static form, but not interactively. Thing is, bias does not necessarily equal low truth value/untrustworthiness to me. Sure, I think they tend to be correlated, and if an outlet is leaving out a huge part of the story that can be lying by omission for sure
@Mister Bluster: yes, that has been my experience interacting with RyGuy, so I don’t put a huge amount of effort into trying to engage. Most often he doesn’t respond at all, which at this point makes me question his credibility. Clearly his mental model of reality and mine have significant non-overlapping sections, that is something he comments on frequently, and to the extent he might be right and I wrong, I would want to know that so I could fix myself. I don’t know if he feels the same way, but at least one of us is wrong and if we worked together in good faith we could probably figure that out. I don’t like passing up the opportunity to correct my mistakes, but I’m also not going to change my mind without a demonstration that I should
I’m going to read more of Media Matters as part of my attempt to understand what’s being said on right-wing media.
A couple of thoughts.
In economics there is Gresham’s law, which basically says ‘bad money drives out good money.’ In today’s digital world of instant information, one where quantity seems to overwhelm quality, an updated operating corollary might be, ‘bad information drives out good information.’
Finally, many years ago, 20th century Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset said,
“Life is fired at us point blank.”
Well, that’s our digital information world today, and we are not coping wery well.